The Supermoto Blog Intro

Welcome to The Supermoto Blog, sponsored by Motostrano.com

Lot of stuff to talk about in the months ahead. We started this blog, because, from what we can tell there aren't that many Supermoto related blogs out there and there's a lot going on in Supermoto these days. Who better to tell the tail than the folks at Motostrano?

BLOGAD: Motostrano is the LEADING supermoto parts and accessories company in the US, if not the world. No other company has the knowledge and supermoto-specific product inventory on hand with leading brands like Excel, Talon, Marchesini, FMF, Beringer, Moto-Master, Brembo, Acerbis and UFO. Many of the parts offered by Motostrano can't be found anywhere else! Free shipping and great service. Call 650-780-9306 or order online at www.motostrano.com
The goal with The Supermoto Blog is to build a sizable Supermoto specific blog covering all aspects of the activity, whether it's racing, riding, getting into it, getting better at it, tech tips, news, products, history, future, the riders, all of it and hopefully this will be an international affair, not just a Yankee thing.

* We are looking for contributors to this joint effort, so interested parties, email us. Writers, photographers, etc. You can be based in any country you like.

Joe W

AMA: Rockstar/Hart & Huntington/Motostrano.com-JsTRacing

Pre-Release

March 16, 2007

The ’07 Supermoto season will be here before we know it and we’ve been busy in the off-season! JSTracing-Motostrano.com has joined forces with Rockstar, the energy drink, along with the well known Hart & Huntington team. We know that we will have a successful year with our four official riders; Travis Marks, Scott Sheak, Carey Hart and Doni Wanat, who are all well qualified and highly motivated.

We’re starting off the season right, spending this last weekend out at the Grange for the first official test session of the year. We had great weather both days and track conditions were good when we broke in the bikes and dusted off the winter cobwebs. All four riders looked comfortable out there and Scott Sheak, an AMA Motocross National winner, took to the pavement like a duck to water. The team is in good shape for the upcoming Stateline race taking place April 13^th & 14^th.

Carey Hart and Scott Sheak will be competing in the AMA Supermoto class riding Honda’s throughout the season. Doni Wanat and Travis Marks riding their mighty KTM’s will compete in the AMA Unlimited class for the 2007 season. We’re not making it easy on the mechanics Mike and Cliff by having two different brands of bikes but they are doing a great job keeping up with all the changes the racers need and they’re fitting into the team dynamics well.

Last year JSTracing/Motostrano.com finished 5^th in overall team points in the AMA Supermoto series and the Rockstar/Hart & Huntington team finished 7^th making this a strong team from the start. We anticipate podium finishes and high standings this year with an impressive presence on and off the track.

We would like to thank our sponsors for all their support, especially;

Rockstar, Hart & Huntington, Motostrano.com-JsTRacing, Leo Vince, Carter Powersports,

Weekend Warrior, FOX, Parts Unlimited, DVS Shoes, TAG Metals, Alpina Wheels, MotionPro, Works Connection, Factory Effex, Dunlop Tires, MB1 Suspension, Honda Oil, Hinson, ACERBIS,. Pinit Motorsports, Magura, and Moto-Master,

About Hart & Huntington Tattoo Company: Hart & Huntington Tattoo Company is the tattoo shop founded by freestyle motocross legend Carey Hart. The first Hart and Huntington Tattoo Company Shop opened in 2004 in the Palms Casino is Las Vegas, making it the first tattoo shop located in a casino. The tattoo shop has since grown to include a line of tattoo-inspired clothing. In addition to the Las Vegas shop, Hart and Huntington Tattoo Company is expanding with shops open in Waikiki, Hawaii, Cabo San Lucas, Mexico and coming soon Universal Studios Florida. For more information, please visit www.hartandhuntingtontattoo.com.

About Motostrano.com:

Motostrano.com is the leading supermoto parts and accessories company in the USA. Motostrano offers complete supermoto conversion kits for race and street duty, custom wheels, Moto-master brakes and more all for supermoto. To learn more about our services please visit www.motostrano.com.

Media contact:

John S. Tai John@motostrano.com / 650.430.2846

Motostrano's 2007 Race Initiatives

2007 is going to be the best year to date for Motostrano's racing practice. To put this in context, realize that for the past 3 years Motostrano has fielded one of the top privateer (non factory) teems in professional US supermoto racing. We put a lot of time, effort and money into building a reputation at the track that can sometimes seem bigger than life.

On the AMA pro level, Motostrano has partnered once again with JST Racing and combined our team with Cary Hart of Hart & Huntington who has fielded a ROCKSTAR energy drink sponsored team. We're really excited to see what the team will do this year. Our main rider for the past two years and good friend Travis Marks will race along side Scott Sheak, Carey Hart and Doni Wanat and we'll have riders in all classes. Look for the Motostrano tent at these event and look for folks from our shop on hand as well.

On the local level, our own Paul Giani has put together his own battalion of riders to compete up and down the West Coast in the Supermoto USA Nor Cal series. Brok at SMUSA has created an aggressive season this year and Motostrano is behind it both as a title sponsor and as a collection of racers. We'll also be on hand at most of the races with a display and vending booth for trackside support.

Aside from these 2 initiatives, we have many other privateer sponsored riders in place including Ryan Moore, the sharpshooter Supermoto stunt rider of out SoCal.

SNVSM: Supermoto Stunt Bike Insanity

Supermoto Stunt Bike Insanity

Primm NV, March 14, 2007 - He tried. He really did. Back in '95, after years of riding in the dirt, a 21-year-old Ryan Moore decided he had to turn his back on motorcycles - too much of a distraction! - and concentrate on his studies. Forsaking the sport he loved, he worked hard and earned a degree in Manufacturing Engineering. He'd become a grown-up!

But then a friend pleaded with Ryan to repair his twisted XR50. He was an engineer now, wasn't he? And with that, Ryan was off the wagon. He transformed that mini into a super-trick street stunt bike and thus became part of the growing revolution that was turning the smallest of motorcycles into the biggest of modification trends. Ryan opened a machine shop and 50Stunt was born. Naturally he had to constantly do product test rides (and jumps, and flips) to make sure his tweaks and inventions would work. But he didn't stop there.

Fast forward to today, and Ryan Moore has graduated again, this time in bike size. Oh, he's still building minis alright, in his greatly expanded ESD Manufacturing facility in Grover Beach, CA. But now he's also customizing 450 supermoto bikes into radical stunt machines. And riding them every way you can think of ... except normal.

Supermoto Kicks Off April 13-15

Moore applied his engineering know-how - and a showman's imagination - to build his radical supermoto stunt bike.
Supermoto Kicks Off April 13-15

Moore demonstrates one of the milder tricks he'll be
performing at the Stateline Supermoto Challenge April 13-15. Moore will bring his unique brand of stunt-riding insanity to the Stateline Supermoto Challenge www.snvsupermoto.com in Primm, NV on April 13-15. Organizer Marche Karger, who in his third year of running the Stateline Challenge has already created the largest supermoto event in North America, thinks having Moore go nuts on his heavily modified 450 between races will make the crowd go, well, nuts.

"I always want to add more cool elements to the event," says Karger. "We already have every OEM participating and well over 500 racers. But I think Ryan's show will raise the 'crowdpleaser' factor even more and make our race weekend better than ever."

The Stateline Supermoto Challenge has quickly established itself as the unofficial opener of the supermoto racing season. All the top riders jump at the chance to compete against tough rivals in preparation for the AMA schedule. That's why guys like Wardy, Micky Dymond, Benny Carlson, Darryl Atkins and Troy Herfoss have already signed on. And by the time the first flag drops, every team and supermoto racer of merit will be represented on this year's custom-designed track adjacent to Buffalo Bill's Resort & Casino, located a few hundred feet into Nevada from the California border.

# # #
Submitted by: Resource Marketing, Encinitas, California 92024
Tel 760-436-9937 / Fax 760-436-3711
Contact: Tim Hackett tim@resmarket.com or Scott Cox scott@resmarket.com

AMA: 4 New Dates Added

March 16, 2007

AMA Racing news release

AMA Racing announced today that four supermoto venues have been added to the upcoming race season schedule, bringing to a total of ten rounds that will make up the 2007 AMA Supermoto Championship Series.

Beginning with the new season opener on May 19 at St. Louis’ Verizon Wireless Amphitheater, an event in which AMA Racing’s Supercross Series partner Live Nation will promote, the AMA Supermoto Championship will also feature new events at Raceway Park (Englishtown, N.J.) and MotoTown USA (New England), along with the series’ return to Denver, Colo.

“From top to bottom this is for sure the most solid AMA Supermoto Championship schedule we’ve put together in the five-year history of the series,” said Joel Grover, director of supermoto for AMA Racing. “St. Louis is a very motorsports-friendly region, the east coast will get its first AMA Supermoto round in New Jersey, the strong New England motocross and road race contingent will be excited about the Connecticut round, and we’re very pleased to be returning to Denver for another double header– located in the heart of action sports central Colorado.”

Here’s a quick breakdown on the new events for the 2007 AMA Supermoto Championship schedule:

interad: Sponsored by Motostrano.com

• The St. Louis opener at Verizon Wireless Amphitheater (May 19) will include a first-ever Friday night concert to kick off the weekend race event, which includes pro racing on Saturday and amateur racing on Sunday.

• Raceway Park (Englishtown, N.J.), home of the popular “Kawasaki Race of Champions” motocross event and only 30 minutes from Manhattan, will bring AMA championship supermoto to its established facility for the first time. The combination motorcycle/auto complex, already boasting an established amateur supermoto race scene, is sure to be one of the highest-attended events of the season.

• New England’s MotoTown USA (Hartford, Conn.) is another state-of-the-art facility that includes an interesting hitch: For the first time ever AMA Supermoto will race a portion of the event indoors, cutting through the 120,000 square foot building’s motocross track floor.

• Denver, Colo., returns to the AMA Supermoto Championship Series with a double header scheduled for July 14 and 15. The downtown race will be part of the Suzuki CycleFest this year and will offer impressive motorcycle displays and even exciting street demo rides for the bold race fan.

Note: Previously announced events in Columbus, Ohio, Syracuse, N.Y., and Monterey, Calif., have been removed from the schedule, and the Seattle event has been moved up a week.

With the four new rounds the 2007 AMA Supermoto Championship schedule is as follows:

Date City/State Venue
5/19 St. Louis, Mo. Verizon Wireless Amphitheater
6/3 Englishtown, N.J. Raceway Park
6/23 Salt Lake City, Utah Miller Motorsports Park
7/8 Detroit, Mich. Waterford Hills Road Race Course
7/14-15 Denver, Colo. Downtown (Doubleheader)
8/18 Hartford, Conn. MotoTown USA
9/1 Nashville, Tenn. Music City Motorplex
9/15 Seattle, Wash. Pacific Grand Prix
11/11 Long Beach, Calif. Queen Mary
interad: Sponsored by Motostrano.com

Hardware: Supermoto Gear of the Pros

We put a lot into our pro-Supermoto racing efforts. Over the past 4 years, Motostrano has been involved with Supermoto racers ranging from #1 World S1 Supermoto pros like Max Manzo, Gerald Delepine and Max Gazzarrata, to young budding amateurs like Chad Cose, George Deguzeman, Chuck Patterson and others. All of the champions in their own right.

This year Motostrano has partnered as Sponsor for the Rockstar, Hart & Huntington AMA pro team, while also helping pro riders like Micky Dymond. The Stateline Supermoto event last month was our first true race test session. It was a hoot. Cary Hart, Tyler Evans, Travis Marks and Donny Wanat will pilot their machines to the podium and all the while bang bars with the top US and World Supermoto riders, all of them using product out of the Motostrano workshops.

The bikes of the Rockstar/ H&H team are a mix of Honda, Suzuki and KTM. This team will more than likely be the top privateer team for 2007. The bikes are equiped with parts sold by Motostrano to the general public. "We race what we sell" - is our Moto. Team bikes are equipped with Motomaster Race Brake kits or Magura full race set-ups on the KTMs. Team bikes are going to run the Alpina Tubeless System Supermoto Wheels with Dunlop Tires all season. Leo Vince powers the exhaust systems and Galfersteel brake lines are used. Most of the Hondas are equipped with Tag metals triple clamps and Handlebars. All bikes are equipped with STM Slipper clutches and Acerbis Plastic - including the new supermoto specific Acerbis Handguardsand front fenders. Most of the riders will be wearing FOX MX gear for all Supermoto events.

We race what we sell. We get constant feedback from our riders when they race the stuff we sell. We also do a lot of post-race analysis on the parts used to guage wear. We find this the best way to know what's going on with these parts and this info is translated both directly to our web catalog and also to our sales staff where it gets out to our customers like white lightening.

Ok- enough of the blogomercial- show me how this really happens?

At Stateline, Micky Dymond's mechanic came over to our tent looking for a catch can to use in the race. We had two kinds to offer him. He took both and played with each of them before sending one of them back and using the other. This info goes to our sales staff. Or, last year, one of our riders was using a product that provided some special tape to tape up spoked rims to create a pseudo tube-less rim. The tubeless system failed, albeit on some pretty heavy jumps during one of the events and this product was dropped from our catalog completely the day after the race. We may also hear direct feedback about which exhaust is pumping out the most power on what bike, which is the lightest, etc. All this info comes to us direct from the rider, from the pits and to our sales department and out to you.

AMA: Rockstar, Hart & Huntington Tattoo Co. Motostrano Race Report

Rockstar, Hart & Huntington Tattoo Co. Motostrano Race Report

Over 900 riders competed against each other at the Stateline Challenge in Primm, NV and we gave them a run for their money! We definitely had an exciting (if hazardous!) weekend on the hard-to-pass track.

We managed to wrangle Tyler Evans, a Motocross hero, into riding with us this weekend and he tore it up! Keeping the pressure on the leaders and finishing fifth in his qualifying race and 15th overall in the 450 class. He also did great in the Open class, finishing 14th (not bad for a newbie!).
Carey Hart raced hard in the first race of the season finishing 24th in the 450 class. He took a tough spill on Sunday in the Open qualifier, snapping his wrist and tearing himself up pretty badly, ending his weekend. He's hoping to get back on the track in time for the season opener.

Despite having some bad luck, Doni Wanat came back and finished 22nd on Saturday. He started out great on Sunday finishing 4th in his qualifier and although getting up close and personal with the pavement, he still finished the Open Pro 29th . He's looking good this year and we know we'll see some great results from him.

Travis went down in the qualifiers for the 450 class on Saturday and got bruised up pretty badly, but by the time the Open pro came around on Sunday he was good to go finishing 2nd in his qualifier getting a 2nd row start for the main and snagging a 10th place finish! He's definitely going to be challenging for podium positions this season.

The guys looked fast and ready out there and we're looking forward to a great season!

Scott Sheak will unfortunately not be joining us for the remainder of the season and we wish him the best of luck.
We would like to thank our sponsors for all their support, especially; Rockstar, Hart & Huntington Tattoo Co., Carter Powersports, Motostrano.com-JsTRacing, Leo Vince, Weekend Warrior, FOX, Parts Unlimited, DVS Shoes, TAG Metals, Alpina Wheels, Dunlop Tires, MotionPro, Works Connection, Factory Effex, MB1 Suspension, Hinson, ACERBIS,. Pinit
Motorsports, Magura, and Moto-Master.